What’s “More Personal” Than Your Face?

Posted by Raffie Beroukhim on August 24, 2018July 24, 2019 Posted in Biometrics, Education, Government, Healthcare, Hospitality, Retail, Security Tagged biometric solutions, biometric vision, customer experience, facial recognition, facial recognition solutions, guest services, NEC, stadiums, transportation industry, unified biometric key, VIP experience and patrons

Personalizing the Customer Experience with a Unified Biometric Key

The path to a frictionless, personalized customer experience begins with something unique and individual—your face. Using facial recognition technology, a single unified biometric key enables a seamless experience as you move through an environment, whether it’s a sports stadium, entertainment facility, airport, hotel or casino. Facial recognition technology is the key that unlocks a contactless customer experience in a wide range of venues and situations. What could be more convenient or more secure?

Recent developments in facial recognition solutions are not only enhancing security in airports, stadiums or hospitality locations, but also making access to public spaces more convenient, effortless and personal for patrons. Today, consumers are enjoying the speed and security of unlocking their phones using facial recognition, without the bother of passcodes. These demonstrable user benefits have made face-driven technology more common and acceptable as a secure and time-saving part of our day.

Increasingly, consumers are looking for this same easy, contactless and convenient experience in other areas of their daily lives. Benefits of biometric technology are applicable to other situations that require secure access and easy transactions. Here are a just few ways NEC, a leading global provider of Advance Recognition Systems technology, is changing today’s customer experience through facial recognition.

Removing Bottlenecks at Large Events

A game day experience can be exciting and fun. However, you may have to navigate through a few long lines before you can get to your seat to cheer on your team. Sports arenas handle large crowds on a regular basis. In fact, in 2017, the NFL alone had more than 17 million spectators attend its regular season games, while the NBA averaged 17,830 visitors per game in 2017 and 2018. With large crowds, come inevitable “pinch points” as fans move through the venue. What if advanced facial recognition technology could eliminate some of those stress points and create a more pleasurable and hassle-free fan experience?

Everything from dropping your car off in a parking garage, entering the gate, purchasing concessions or swooping into a VIP suite is made easier by using a unified biometric key as a virtual parking pass, wallet and secure entry ticket. Guests no longer need to juggle parking permits, paper tickets, cash or credit cards. They don’t even have to remember where they stored their electronic tickets or try to recall app passcodes or loyalty numbers. Best of all, no more waiting in long, annoying lines. Let’s be honest, who wants to wait 20 minutes just to buy a water at the concessions?

Personalizing the Customer Experience Yields Positive Results

From the point of view of a sports venue, hotel or theme park, facial recognition solutions enhance the customer experience and can have a positive impact on the bottom line as well. Some examples include:

Providing concierge alerts when a VIP enters a facility
Enhancing guest services protocols
Providing crowd density estimates to allocate staff more efficiently
Offering opportunities for personalized sales and services on site

A single unified biometric key triggers concierge alerts when a VIP enters a hotel or casino, prompting enhanced guest services and special offers to the valued patron. Front-desk staff can greet returning loyalty guests by name, further personalizing the check-in experience.

Stadium VIP patrons enter suites seamlessly using facial recognition. Enhanced services are delivered in a more personalized way. Theme parks quickly admit season pass patrons through the gates using facial recognition, with the ability to provide special offers and services geared to loyal guests. Often the technology can be integrated with and deployed using existing venue systems, making the installation an even easier, more cost effective situation.

Since customers’ purchasing during an event is faster using a single unified biometric key, this increases the number of transactions that can be processed in the finite duration of an event. Not having to bother with cash or credit cards speeds up purchases and enables staff to serve more customers more quickly.

Facial recognition technology also captures crowd estimates at venue entrances, concession areas, hotel lobbies or retail areas so additional staff can be deployed immediately where they are most needed.

On-site offers can enhance the customer experience. Facility managers don’t really know who is attending a sporting event or musical performance. They know who bought a ticket, but not much information about the purchaser. Facial recognition provides real-time demographic data about attendees or guests to enable a venue to further shape the customer experience with on-the-spot offers and services.

For instance, if a stadium has facial recognition data that shows it has a large percentage of young men ages 21-29 in attendance for an event, it can prepare by stocking more beer at the concession stands, or change the advertising on retail shop displays to appeal to this demographic, or even alter music choices in the common areas.

Marketing partners and sponsors are able to curate offers in real time to appeal to a certain type of guest—enhancing the customer experience and positively affecting brand recognition and potential sales as well.

Transforming Transportation Processes

Stadiums, theme parks and hotels are not the only facilities being transformed into more efficient and secure places. The transportation industry is also seeing new uses for NEC’s facial recognition technology, considered to be the world’s best in search speed and accuracy according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).Transportation should be about getting to your destination quickly and with as few problems as possible.

Today’s airports are busier, more congested and more stressful than ever. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, more than 821 million passengers boarded U.S. airline flights in 2016—and with the demand for air travel expected to double over the next 20 years, this will certainly make for some very crowded airports.

In the United States, facial recognition technology is being tested to permit passengers to board flights quickly, and also for fast access to airline lounges. Since the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency started testing NEC’s NeoFace® Express facial recognition solution in U.S. airports in 2016, it has registered a success rate of close to 99%. Other airport-related potential uses of a single unified biometric key include: passenger check-in counters, bag drops, in-airport entertainment, boarding, retail and monitoring baggage claim areas.

The cruise ship industry is finding that a single unified biometric key can be used for everything from terminal queue management and effortless check-in to frictionless embarkation and debarkation, and for seamless payments and onboard purchasing.

Enhancing Security Through Technology

Security concerns have invaded almost all aspects of our lives in recent years—from travel to entertainment and sporting venues to retail spaces. Unfortunately, when people gather in public places, there is automatically the awareness of an increased threat, forcing security concerns to be uppermost in our minds.

Our reality is the tension between the heightened focus on keeping public places safe while not having a negative effect on the actual customer experience. The ability to create an excellent customer experience requires balancing both efficiency and security. Authorities responsible for the safety of public places are extremely concerned, and debates over how best to address security concerns are ongoing. At the same time, increased usage of facial recognition in consumer products is making the technology more acceptable as consumers recognize the convenience it provides: frictionless, personalized and secure experiences.

Solutions that combine surveillance cameras with facial recognition software can elevate the level of public security in airports, stadiums and other public places. Also, enterprises can ensure only authorized personnel have access to their facilities, while retailers and sports and entertainment venues can secure their facilities and protect their customers.

Changing the ‘Face’ of the Customer Experience

Deploying a single unified biometric key based on facial recognition technology helps deliver a superior guest experience. Our unique face is rapidly becoming the universal key to replacing our usernames, passwords, paper tickets, parking permits, payment options and even more.

Whether at a stadium or a major transportation facility, NEC’s Advanced Recognition Systems solutions are at the forefront of reinventing the customer journey by melding the optimal combination of convenience and security.

Learn why NEC is a leading facial recognition provider, and find out more about our biometric solutions by visiting https://www.necam.com/AdvancedRecognitionSystems/

Free White Paper
The Power of Identity

Facial recognition technology has matured rapidly and provides game-changing solutions to today’s identification challenges. To learn more, fill out the form to download the white paper.

Healthcare: Seeking Better Tools to Improve Safety and Security

Posted by Howard Thurlow on July 1, 2018July 2, 2018 Posted in Biometrics, Healthcare, Servers and Storage, Unified Communications Tagged biometrics, critical infrastructure, facial recognition, healthcare, unified communications

Providing a safe and secure environment for patients, staff and visitors is top of mind for healthcare facilities. This commitment extends beyond physical safety and includes the information that they manage and safeguard. As healthcare organizations move more of their information and business operations to the cloud, cyber threats and unauthorized access become important security concerns. Patients, too, are concerned about their health information. Who has access to my sensitive data? Can I easily access it when I need to, without compromising security?

Recent studies show that increased threats of cyberattacks have an adverse effect on business transformation, slowing innovation, increasing potential fraud and affecting the cost of doing business. A comprehensive approach of seamlessly integrating solutions to address IT, communications and collaboration, identity and access control will help healthcare organizations improve the safety, efficiency and reliability of their operations and service delivery.

Deploy Facial Recognition for Safety and Security

The healthcare industry is increasingly turning to biometric solutions to help combat not only fraud, but also medical identity theft. Research predicts that the healthcare biometrics market could reach $2.8 billion by 2021, with North America seeing the largest increase among regions. Fueling this growth are HIPAA and other regulations affecting the handling of healthcare data.

Facial recognition can be used to ensure that only authorized healthcare staff get access to critical patient data, particularly when used as part of multi-factor identification. Facial recognition combined with either a passcode or key card helps make ID more secure. Administrative staff can more quickly process admissions and discharges by using biometrics for patient identity. Healthcare providers are able to access the right patient information when they need it.

For patients, facial recognition gives them access their personal health information, reducing the chance for identity theft of healthcare records. Another application of facial recognition or other biometrics method (finger or palm prints, vascular palm/vein pattern, etc.) is patient identity within a healthcare facility. Secure identification improves safety and security, helps prevent errors and lets staff quickly identify allergies or pre-existing conditions in patients’ records in case of emergency.

Efficient Communications Improves Responsiveness

Things move fast in a healthcare facility — especially during times of emergency. Healthcare officials need a contingency plan to ensure the ongoing safety of patients, staff and visitors during a threat situation. Emergency notification solutions quickly communicate the source and severity of a developing situation and ensure an adequate response by both hospital staff and public safety officials.

Hospitals and other healthcare facilities also experience day-to-day health emergencies, which require responsive communications as well. Mobile communications systems provide for anywhere, anytime communications, which could save precious minutes. Nurse Call and messaging solutions help alleviate alarm fatigue by making sure the right messages get routed to the right staff members

Infrastructure Key Component to Secure Data Access

Privacy and protection of patient information is central to reputable healthcare organizations. The data must be secure, but easily accessible when needed. Comprehensive data management and storage solutions provide protection along with secure accessibility of patient data and information.

Cloud infrastructure offers a reliable solution needed to support information-intensive workflows within a healthcare facility. A secure and resilient infrastructure is a suitable option for highly connected healthcare facilities and the dynamic caseloads they manage on a daily basis. A high availability infrastructure from NEC delivers a multi-tiered resilient environment that recovers quickly in times of disaster, by using Five 9s Fault Tolerant servers, disaster recovery software and SAN and Scale-out Grid Storage options.

Peace of Mind for Patients and Healthcare Organizations

Technology solutions can go a long way toward providing a sense of security and safety for patients and healthcare organizations. The right integrated solution that includes IT, unified communications and collaboration and biometrics can:

Increase security of sensitive patient data by controlling access and preventing fraud and ID theft
Provide greater levels of patient satisfaction by reducing wait times and helping ensure more efficient and error-free information management
Improve physical safety for healthcare personnel and patients alike, especially during emergencies

Check out NEC’s smart comprehensive healthcare solutions.

Free Strategic Consultation
Let us assist you with your current business needs!

Fill out the form today and we will get back with you.

Personalizing the Customer Experience at Sea with Advanced Recognition Systems

Posted by Alex Exum on June 26, 2018June 25, 2018 Posted in Biometrics, Hospitality, Retail Tagged biometrics, cruise lines, disembarking cruise ship, embarking, facial recognition, NEC, NeoFace Express, NeoFace facial recognition technology, personalized customer experience

According to the Cruise Lines International Association 2018 Cruise Industry Outlook (CLIA), 27.2 million passengers are expected to cruise with 27 new ocean, river and specialty ships to launch this year. 2018 is also the year that CLIA predicts a rise in traveler-friendly technology to enhance their customers’ travel experiences.

The question on the minds of progressive cruise line market leaders is how to securely process increasingly larger numbers of passengers while adding more customer ease into the cruise experience. Many in the cruise line industry are considering the use of biometrics technology.

How a Single Unified Biometric Key Creates Seamless Experiences

Passwords, loyalty cards and other forms of ID are used in every encounter, from shopping at the grocery store to listening to your favorite playlist to boarding a cruise ship. Enterprise leaders are recognizing the amount of information consumers have to carry, either physically or mentally, in order to access personalized experiences. Allen Ganz, Director of Advanced Recognition Solutions at NEC America offers a different take: “Your face is a unified key.”

NEC’s facial recognition solutions, ranked #1 after performance testing by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), identify individual faces of people as they move in real time, without stopping to look at a camera. This technology allows each individual to use their face as a unified biometric key, in many different situations, to create seamless and personalized experiences.

Specific to the cruise line industry, early adopters have found that a unified biometric key can be used for:

Biometric Passenger Manifest
Cruise Terminal Queue Management
Effortless Check-In and Bag Check
Frictionless Expedited Embarkation and Debarkation
Intelligent Customized Displays
Seamless Payment
Access Control
Data and Video Analytics
Command and Control

Cruise Terminal Queues and Check In

Embarkation day can be hectic for the traveler who is ready to get away from it all. The lines to board the ship can be excruciatingly long unless the traveling couple or family has purchased priority embarkation through the cruise line loyalty program. However, this process does not need to be time consuming. With the use of a unified biometric key, the queue to board the ship–even for those travelers who are not VIPs, can be more efficient.

Since the Customs check-in typically slows the process of boarding the ship, travelers can speed this up by self-enrolling in the ship’s system using facial recognition; they simply take a quick selfie using their smartphone, and opt in. Now, with a simple scan of their face, they have created a unique and unified biometric key to also use aboard the ship. Rapid access authentication quickly matches the traveler to the ship’s guest list, enabling the guests to come aboard faster. Onboard, baggage can also be matched to the traveler’s profile using only their face, so they can quickly access their luggage upon arrival or departure.

VIP Treatment

Once passengers have enrolled themselves and created their own unified biometric key, they can now use their face to unlock personalized VIP experiences tailored to their interests and manifest. Using intelligent customized displays, guests will be able to walk up and see their personalized itinerary and other entertainment options. Facial recognition technology can also open guest room doors, and purchase items on the ship through facial payment, creating a simple and frictionless experience. With a system that automatically matches each guest to their individual preferences, all travelers feel welcomed and recognized on a personal level.

Implementing facial recognition can also benefit cruise lines by prompting their staff to enthusiastically welcome loyalty guests and to personalize birthday, anniversary and other special occasion greetings.

Disney and Carnival ships are currently using biometrics to sell their passenger’s vacation photos taken during the cruise. Instead of presenting guests with a card or having, them review the photos on a wall, the system sorts through the photos by matching them to their face, and presents them on a personalized display or through a mobile app.

Frictionless Embarkation and Debarkation

Cruise ships have 2,000 to 4,000 passengers and over 1,000 employees on board, which means embarkation and debarkation at ports may take hours to complete. With the use of an individual’s unified biometric key, passengers and employees are recognized for that particular cruise, which reduces passenger-processing by 40% or more, adding efficiency to the port embarkation and debarkation experience.

The process is simple. When passengers or employees disembark from the ship, their face is scanned using facial recognition, and is matched to the image from the initial enrollment process. Without the need to stop, travelers can exit and re-enter the ship in record time, giving them more time at their port of call. In fact, Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, Georgia is already relying on facial recognition technology and Washington, D.C.’s Dulles International Airport is also participating in biometric testing with NEC’s NeoFace® Express both with much success.

Improving Safety and Security

Because a unified biometric key is unique to each individual, it can be used to improve the safety and security for everyone on board, ensuring only those persons who should be on the ship are on the ship. Facial recognition can also be used for access control, to allow cruise staff to secure employee-only areas with a scan of their face. Cruise line security can track guests, color-code traveling families, and easily create different settings for particular travelers or families.

NEC: The Leading Facial Recognition Provider

Early adopters in the cruise line industry have already begun using facial recognition to create a positive, effortless experience for their guests. NEC offers the most advanced identification matching technology today. For ten consecutive years, NEC’s facial recognition technology has been awarded first place from the U.S. National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). Some of the standards met during the testing included:

Recognizing one individual at a time, as they walked through a crowded area without stopping
Detecting suspicious individuals at an indoor stadium
Accuracy and speed of matching to photos already in a database

NEC’s NeoFace® Express uses facial recognition to transform the travel experience–or any hospitality experience that involves large groups of people. The system interfaces with on-board video systems for easy integration. Adding facial recognition and other biometric technology allows cruise lines to offer a first-class journey with security, frictionless access, and to give passengers a personalized experience using a simple, unified biometric key.

Ready to learn more? Fill out the form below for a simple consultation with one of our biometric subject matter experts or visit us online to for more information on our biometric solutions.

Learn more about NEC’s Advanced Recognition Solutions

Fill out the form, and we’ll have a solutions expert reach out to you.

Digital Healthcare Starts with a Better ‘Customer Experience’ for Patients

Posted by Howard Thurlow on May 29, 2018June 29, 2018 Posted in Biometrics, Healthcare, Servers and Storage, Unified Communications Tagged biometrics, critical infrastructure, facial recognition, healthcare, Smart Enterprise, unified communications

As a consumer, your customer exprience often drives your purchasing decisions. This edict holds true whether you’re having dinner at a restaurant, upgrading to a new smartphone or buying a new pair of running shoes.

Why should the consumption of heathcare services be any different? Unlike many purchases, healthcare customers usually have less mobility in how and where they receive healthcare services. It’s relatively easy to go to a new restaurant if you encounter bad service or to switch retailers when you have a negative experience. It’s not so simple to change insurance carriers or go to a different healthcare facility. The delivery of patient care is made even more complex when considering regulations, compliance and privacy issues. That’s why improving the healthcare “customer experience” has become so important.

Making the patient experience better and enabling healthcare staff to be more efficient falls to the healthcare provider. Fortunately, providers have a myriad of technology options that can help them improve service delivery.

Enable Better Calling Experiences

Digital transformation creates environments to help patients make more informed decisions about their healthcare. One of consumers’ biggest complaints is the inability to easly communicate with their healthcare providers—the phone line is always busy or it rings and rings before someone finally picks up the call. As if being sick weren’t bad enough!

A communications solution designed to rapidly and efficiently handle large call volumes is an ideal option for healthcare providers. A more efficient call system enables more individualized interactions between patients and caregivers and reduces wait times. Contact center and attendant solutions provide the ability to direct calls based on rules that route calls to personnel who have the skills and training to respond to certain inquiries. Calls from patients with similar questions also can often be handled through automated systems, further reducing wait times.

The Ability to Deliver Personalized Treatment…Remotely

Sometimes it’s not possible or convenient for a patient and a caregiver to be in the same place at the same time. Long-distance services such as telediagnosis, telemonitoring, self-monitoring or e-prescriptions use technology to extend the reach of heathcare providers. Video conferencing solutions expand facility services to offsite and remote locations so that dispersed team members are able to connect and consult more seamlessly. Video conferencing can*:

Promote knowledge sharing in real time
Reduce travel costs
Enable faster decision making
Build value-based service models
Increase care collaboration

^{*Before video conferencing is used in a healthcare setting, check HIPAA compliance requirements to avoid potential violations.}

Further, a unified messaging solution enables healthcare facilities to better manage the flurry of alerts, texts, messages, calls and notifications being sent out. Unified messaging ensures that the right information and alerts are sent to assigned personnel, reducing alarm fatigue and enabling focused care delivery to patients without unnessary distractions.

Helping Caregivers be More Responsive and Collaborative

Being responsive to patient needs is one of the critical aspects of a caregiver’s daily routine. A comprehensive healthcare-focused unified communications and collaboration solution such as NEC’s Nurse Call system brings together voice and messaging to enable anytime, anywhere availability that puts patients first.
Being mobile ensures that healthcare staff can commuicate easily with colleagues and patients within the demanding environment of a healthcare facility. With mobile handsets and software-based clients, caregivers stay connected so that they can share information or request assistance immediately. A seamlessly integrated healthcare environment helps ensure better interactions with patients and improves delivery of attentive care where and when it’s needed most.

A Reliable Infrastructure to Back Up UC&C Capabilities

Since they often deliver critical life-saving and emergency services, healthcare facilities cannot tolerate service outages. By deploying a high-availability infrastructure, healthcare providers have a strong operational foundation to prevent potential service disruptions. Comprehensive protection of critical applications along with communications and collaboration give providers peace of mind as they provide ongoing patient care. A multi-tiered environment that recovers quickly should disasters occur provides added reassurance for healthcare providers. A high-availability solution supports a healthcare facility’s mission-critical capabilities and provides backup and recovery as necessary.

Consumerism will Continue to Drive Healthcare Delivery

As it has in many of industries, rising consumer awareness continues to have a profound effect on healthcare delivery. Using technology to improve service—from setting up an appointment to enabling staff communication to video diagnosis—will go a long way toward improving the patient experience, ultimately resulting in better patient outcomes.

Learn more about NEC’s smart healthcare solutions.

Free Strategic Consultation
Let us assist you with your current business needs!

Fill out the form today and we will get back with you.

How Criminal Investigations Can Be Expedited Using Facial Recognition

Posted by Lee Kicker on May 7, 2018May 7, 2018 Posted in Analytics, Biometrics, Government Tagged biometrics, Biometrics in law enforcement, facial recognition, law enforcement, NEC, NeoFace facial recognition technology, neoface widenet

Across the nation, Law Enforcement Organizations (LEOs) are inundated every day with photographic and video evidence in their Criminal Investigation Divisions (CID). Numerous agencies have shared with me that in more than 30% of their CID cases the ONLY evidence they have is a photo or video of an unknown suspect, received from a variety of sources, including surveillance cameras, RING doorbells, and smartphones. Typically, law enforcement resorts to sharing these images via social media, in hopes that someone will recognize the individual. Hoping for a random identification is not the most solid investigation strategy, but there is now a way those same images can become viable leads for Investigators to pursue, to catch the offenders and get them off the streets.

NEC’s NeoFace® WideNet is designed to assist law enforcement agencies by turning their mugshot repositories interfaced with our NIST award winning Facial Recognition solution into Facial Recognition as a Service for Law Enforcement. For the first time, multiple agencies will be able to share their mugshots with each other, AND utilize NEC’s powerful NeoFace Facial Recognition–the industry’s fastest and most accurate face matching algorithm. A key benefit to the criminal case investigation is the advantage of quick processing of facial evidence coupled with its ability to rapidly generate a list of persons of interest. Speedy identification means NEC’s NeoFace WideNet-hosted service saves valuable time in the investigations of cases containing facial video evidence, thus reducing the investigator’s caseload.

Designed to be highly scalable as well as affordable, NeoFace WideNet is for small, medium, and the largest of law enforcement agencies. Because this service changes the model for this purchase from CAPEX to OPEX, this lowers acquisition costs and is enabling agencies of all sizes to utilize the technology.
NeoFace WideNet customers see an immediate return on investment with the reduction of investigation time and reduced investigator workloads. But most importantly, this crime fighting solution helps turn those previously unusable images into hard evidence to solve crimes and help close cases.

Now agencies will be able to share their mugshots with each other, utilizing the powerful NeoFace #FacialRecognition #software--the industry’s fastest and most accurate face matching algorithm Click To Tweet

Just as AFIS revolutionized fingerprint evidence over 30 years ago, NeoFace WideNet is poised to positively impact law enforcement by effectively doing the same thing with photo and video evidence.
If your organization is interested in solving more crimes and arming your investigators with the tools to be more efficient, check this out.

Free Case Study
Irving Police Department (IPD)

Learn how City of Irving Police department worked with NEC to increase success rates in suspect identification using facial recognition.